Light Commutated Motor

This my version of Daryl Chapin’s ‘Light Commutated Motor’ from 1962. He and two other guys invented the solar cell back in the 1950’s when they were working for Bell Labs . The horizontal motor I show here is a type of Larry Spring’s magnetically levitated version that he presented in 1994. Larry’s original motor uses four solar cells, two wire coils, and self started. That motor is the most common version built today. Larry lived in Mendocino California when he built the device and that is how the motor got it’s name. The original idea came from Daryl Chapin 30 years earlier. Here is the Wikipedia story of the ‘Mendocino Motor’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendocino_motor